


Christmas Cards

by Aithilin



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Christmas, F/M, Fluff, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-01-30
Updated: 2014-01-30
Packaged: 2018-01-10 14:18:30
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 994
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1160679
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Aithilin/pseuds/Aithilin
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Cards start to arrive at Baker Street for the holidays. They're all for John.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Christmas Cards

**Author's Note:**

> Sherlolly is an underrated pairing.

It started in November. They arrived one by one— a few weeks apart, trickling in with the winter rains and colder winds. By December, John was bringing them home in handfuls from grateful patients. They took over the mantle, the shelves, and had started on the desk by the time Christmas Eve rolled around. John had read each one— with Sherlock scoffing over his shoulder at each sentimental message— before he placed each card in its place of honour around the cluttered flat.

Mrs. Hudson had cooed over each and every card that had arrived at Baker Street, lining her own up in the hallway by the stairs. The ones from fans— sometimes accompanied by strange gifts and marriage proposals— were put up along a string as the festive decorations. They left a trail of bright colours and sparkles along the hall and up the stairs (and, if one or two went missing every few days, just in time for Sherlock to run tests on different treatments of papers and inks, no one mentioned the gaps in the line). 

As the season pressed on, no one mentioned that none of the cards were addressed to just Sherlock. Despite his condemnation of the sentimentality of the whole holiday season, and the utter uselessness of the event of Christmas (“There’s not even a lasting _psychological_ element, John! Two days later and the whole population just goes back to hating each other and complaining about the weather!”), John had caught Sherlock examining the messages of each new card carefully. It was more than the quick look he barely afforded the mail sent in by the fans of John’s blog— with each new card brought in from the clinic, or sent from friends (“For god’s sake, John! You see them at least every other weekend. Surely the friends who _live down the street_ don’t need to use the post to extend some moronic seasonal greeting!”), Sherlock spent time reading the well wishes to his flatmate. 

He refused to touch the single card John placed on the high shelf above the television. It was red, and green, and playfully done up with every single bell-and-whistle John tutted over when they appeared in the other cards. But Sherlock left it alone in its place of prominence in the flat, because John would smile every time he saw it, and had made a call to Mary the day it arrived to let her know (Sherlock purposely ignored the call when John started to edge out of the living room— voice soft, gentle, far too sentimental about something as silly as a Christmas card). 

There were no cards from Mycroft, nor from anyone John would assume to be related or associated with Sherlock in any way. As Christmas came, the well-wishes became more frequent, and the cards arrived in greater numbers. The officers at the Yard sent a card to them both, delivered by Lestrade and slightly wrinkled where he had shoved it into a coat pocket (nearly forgotten in his rush out the office door; Sherlock let John decide where to place it in the mess). Mrs. Hudson’s card came with a plate of bite-sized scones and a bit of talk about how it was “just a silly little thing, but you know how the holiday is, and you just think of someone when you’re out at the shops— and chew your food Sherlock, dear, they might be a bit stale now.”

On Christmas Eve, Sherlock escaped the mess of paper and glitter, and cheerfulness by visiting Molly. He never doubted that she would be at the lab, waiting for him to bring a bit of interest to her life. 

“Sherlock,” she pulled him into her tiny, cluttered office hours after he had arrived— during the too-necessary period of waiting for results; “I know you don’t really do… Christmas, or holidays, or… _that_ , but—“

“Molly, if I knew that you wanted to wish me a ‘merry Christmas’, I would have brought John along to reply.”

“Well, it’s not— I _do_ want you to have a good Christmas, and I know you don’t really like these things. You probably have a lot by now and—“

“ _Molly_.”

“Just, _here_.”

Sherlock had no choice but to take the card that had been shoved against his chest. It wasn’t bright and cheerful, and there weren’t sparkles of any kind. There was a cartoon skull, with a festive hat, and a silly message about the “ghosts of Christmas” and Molly’s own happy script—

“Don’t.” Molly’s voice cut through his deductions about the card— so far from what he had spent the better part of two months being told was ‘usual’ and ‘normal’ for the season— and Sherlock looked at her properly. The blush was faint, and she was already pulling on the heavy wool coat she wore on her way home. “Please don’t read it right now. It’s silly, and dumb, and I’m already embarrassed. But I saw it, and…”

“You thought of me.”

John’s name was not in the card. It wasn’t addressed to them both, or carrying the same general sentiment aimed at “the household” Sherlock had found so impersonal and pointless (“Why would you extend a gesture of friendship, then not even name the friend?”). It was to Sherlock, and Sherlock alone.  
When he got home to Baker Street— careful of the noise the stairs made, and not bothering with the lights until he was in his own bedroom— Sherlock finally read the card. 

He smiled, and set it aside. Tomorrow it would join the others on the bookshelf. Perhaps next to the hideous thing Mary had sent to John. But for now, the silly little card (saved from a partial mauling-by-cat, judging by the tiny tears along one corner) had a spot by the clock in his room. 

Sherlock sent off a quick text to Molly, before he settled in to record his own recollections of the latest case. 

_Thank you, Molly._


End file.
